‘On Akwa-Ibom guber case, apex court should right the wrongs’
Appeal Court decision
The judgment of the Court of Appeal, with all due respect to their Lordships, has a very grave area of reservations. We as a government, party and people representing the people of the Akwa Ibom State intend to explore the constitutional right of appeal to seek redress at the Supreme Court. We want to have that judgment tested by the Apex Court but as of today and until the next sixty days when the Supreme Court would have finished its decision, His Excellency, Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel remains effectively constitutionally, statutorily the governor of Akwa Ibom State and will continue to run the administration of the state.
That the court said election should be conducted within 90 days is a normal pronouncement based on the Electoral Act. But the 90 days can only come into effect if we were not appealing against the judgment. We have filed appeal against the judgment. The 90 days abates and the 90 days will begin to run if the Supreme Court upholds that decision and then says that such election should be conducted within the next 90 days from the date of judgment of the Supreme Court. As long as we have filed our appeal, the order that the election should be conducted within 90 days stand suspended pending when the Supreme Court gives the final decision on the matter.
Why going further after losing at both the tribunal and appeal levels?
We didn’t lose at the tribunal. The tribunal decided to nullify election in 18 local governments and upheld election in 13 local governments. It is the Court of Appeal that now went a step further, for reasons best known to them, to nullify election in the remaining 13 local governments and even if we were to have lost completely like it happened in Rivers State at the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, that does not deprive us of the right of appeal to the Supreme Court. In matters not just election petition matters, even in regular cases, whether commercial, traditional, social or whatever, a party can lose at the High Court, lose at the Court of Appeal but win at the Supreme Court.
That is why the Supreme Court is there. That is why we reserve the right to take this matter to the Supreme Court to have the case assessed and give its own verdict.
Expectations at the Apex Court
The Court of Appeal judgment fell short of what should be expected because in practical terms, the court refused to follow well-established principles of law, which has been set by the Supreme Court in several cases. In election petition matters, allegation of improprieties, malpractices and non-compliance must be proved unit by unit. That was the bedrock of our appeal to the Court of Appeal. But the Court of Appeal decided that they were not going to follow that, that this case is different, that in Akwa Ibom State, election petition allegations of non-compliance should not be proved unit by unit and they decided to use the evidence of one person to nullify election in the entire local government. They used evidence of one person to nullify election in 171 units of Oruk Anam local government. They used the evidence of Obong Victor Attah, the former governor alone testifying in respect of one unit to nullify election in all 131 units in Ibesikpo Asutan local government.
They use the evidence of two witnesses in Onna local government to nullify the election in all the units. Those are not the things that are expected in election petition matters. Furthermore, the court went very emotional about the case with all due respect to all their Lordships. They descended into the arena. Court of Appeal relied on evidence that was not before the court, witness statements that were filed but not adopted. If a witness files a statement before the court and he does not go ahead to enter the witness box, swear to an oath and adopt that witness statement, that witness statement is not before the court and the court cannot use it but the Court of Appeal went on a voyage of discovery. The Court of Appeal went on fishing out evidence on its own and went to rely on evidence of witnesses who did not come to the court, who did not testify before the court and relied on them.
That is extremely strange. That is why we are going to Supreme Court to tell them that it is unexpected of them. Why would they go out and bring evidences of witnesses that did not come to the court? Why did they rely on them? Why did they try to distinguish creating a distinction without a difference? In the case of Agbaje and Ambode in Lagos State, the Court of Appeal said that the card reader is not a known component of the electoral process in Nigeria and knocked it off but in the case of Akwa Ibom State; the Court of Appeal relied on the card reader to say that there was over voting. If card reader was rejected in that of Lagos State, why should it be used in that of Akwa Ibom State? If the card reader was not applied and used in the case of Lagos State, which is an APC state, why should it be applied and used in the case of Akwa Ibom State against the PDP. Those are the things we are taking on to Supreme Court.
Where lies the error?
It is not an error; it is a deliberate mischief on the path of the Court of Appeal. I don’t know what could have influenced them. The judgment of the Court of Appeal falls far below what is expected it now constitutes a threat to the survival of democracy in Nigeria. It is capable of upturning our democracy. It is capable of threatening our existence because where people can not be sure of getting justice in a court of law particularly at the high level as the Court of Appeal, that is a major threat to our democracy.
The way forward
The Supreme Court has the opportunity to determine once and for all, of putting back and restoring the confidence of Nigerians in judiciary as being the last hope of all parties that have issues to ventilate before it. As far as Akwa Ibom State election petition is concerned, the Supreme Court has a very great duty and high responsibility to restore the confidence of the populace in the judicial process. We have filed our appeal to the Supreme Court and the apex court has 60 days from the day the judgment was delivered by the Court of Appeal within which to deliver its own verdict in this matter.
We hope we will not lose at the Supreme Court but if that is the case, we will go for the election and win. The Supreme Court is going to order that we should go for the re-run election that is to say the Supreme Court would have upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal and of course if the decision of the Court of Appeal is upheld, the governor will have to vacate office from that day and what normally happen is that the Speaker of House of Assembly will become the Acting Governor for the period when the election will be conducted. The 90 days will start running from the day the Supreme Court delivers its judgment.
Akwa Ibom is PDP state
In the case of rerun, if that is what the apex court decides, the PDP in Akwa-Ibom stands almost 100 percent of winning the election again. This is a PDP state and we have been like this since 1999. Nothing has changed that will warrant a change of government or loyalty to the party. It is not because we would remain PDP forever but so long as PDP is doing extremely well for the people of Akwa Ibom State, Akwa Ibom people are not willing to change a winning team. They would have done it through the ballot box but they didn’t.
People now want to come and use the judicial process to catapult themselves and enter through the window into Akwa Ibom State. Akwa Ibom people will stand up. You don’t just wake up overnight and turn the support base, loyalty and inclination of the people. You don’t just jump in overnight. All those people claiming to be opposition and laying allegation were members of PDP until October 2014 and when they left to the parties they went to, do they see their supporters following them? Did they carry their supporters along? Their supporters know them that they are people that cannot be trusted and didn’t follow them. How did they expect that overnight, just because they have gone out of PDP and went to APC they will win election? It is not an overnight thing.
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1 Comments
I hope you guys are learning from Dasukigate. Udom and others appealing against one ruling or the other, should not use public funds to fight their cases. Funding has to come from candidates/parties. Rigging elections and using taxpayers money to pursue endless court cases are crimes against humanity.
We will review and take appropriate action.